


Blue Skies

by legoline



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, post!Hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 07:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legoline/pseuds/legoline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobby makes Sam and Dean take a few days off</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Skies

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the spnflashfic challenge. Beta by the ever so lovely Raynedanser.

It takes them two hours and thirty-six minutes until they find a beach framed by rocks and a slope that ends near the road that’s abandoned enough for Dean. Hidden enough from sight, too difficult to get to so they won’t be bothered by other people. Sam looks at him with one eyebrow raised and Dean, face all lined with concentration, gives a slow nod. The scar on his left cheek stands out in the afternoon sun, casts a small line of shadow on Dean’s pale skin.

Sam parks the car at the side of the road—he’s been driving the Impala for the last three or four hours—and glances out of the window, past the slope at the horizon, where the ocean meets the sky. Infinite, the sky stretches on forever until it melts into the ocean and they become one.

He gives Dean a nod; Dean who looks as unenthusiastic about this is he can, a scowl on his face and eyes narrowed, lips a fine line, and says, “Come on.”

Sam peels himself out of the driver’s seat and hears the passenger door fall shut. Dean stands next to the trunk, eyeing the slope and what they can see of the beach from up here. He fumbles for his bag when Sam opens the trunk and grabs the straps of his duffel tightly. The sleeve on his right arm slides up a bit and exposes what looks like a spider web of white scars on his forearm. When he notices, Dean quickly pushes the cloth back down.

Dean’s been reluctant about coming here from the start, reluctant in a way that sometimes bordered on panic. He tried to ridicule the idea, told Bobby flatly that they didn’t need a day off. Really, they didn’t. Bobby had remained unimpressed and insisted that they pack their bags and go to California for a couple of days, take some time off and just laze around at a beach for a while. At long last, Dean had agreed to go but only because _Bobby made him go_. That is still a big point for him; he only went because some higher power—Bobby in this case—made him go.

Seeing him now, shoulders square and knuckles white as his fists curl around the strap of the bag, Sam wonders whether he shouldn’t have listened to Bobby. Bobby had said a trip to the coast would take their mind off things for a while—things like Dean suddenly lying on Bobby’s doorstep, bruised and shivering, telling them he’d shown that bitch Lilith and fought himself free. Things like Dean returning from Hell as this quiet person that Sam doesn’t know anymore, still and locked up in himself.

There are scars all over Dean’s body—that much Sam knows for sure. He’s only seen some of them, the ones he sometimes catches glimpses of when Dean’s pants or shirts slide up. He wears training pants when he sleeps and all his shirts have long sleeves these days. He changes in the bathroom, doesn’t come out after showers until he’s fully dressed. The only visible scar is the one on his cheek, and Sam has a feeling that Dean’s unwillingness to come here has to do with that, what his body looks like after months of tormenting. Whether Dean’s ashamed or just scared for his brother Sam can’t tell.

Then again, it doesn’t really matter.

They cross the street side by side and begin to descend the slope. Dean’s steps are more unsure than they used to be, and Sam takes the lead and tells Dean where it’s safe to put his feet.

When they reach the ground, Sam kicks his shoes off and puts the bag down. The beach’s nothing more than a narrow line of sand, really, just big enough so it doesn’t get swamped completely every time a wave comes rolling onto the shore.

Sam drops to on the beach and closes his eyes, digs his feet into the warm sand, feels Dean sitting down next to him in silence after a moment.

The murmuring of the ocean lulls Sam in, and he tilts his head back a little so that the sun shines on his face. The salty breeze tickles his cheeks and drowns out all other noises, like the occasional car driving by above them. His shoulders ease up, and knots in his stomach that he hadn’t noticed were there begin to loosen. When he cracks his eyes open, Dean’s sitting by his side with his knees pulled up, elbows resting on them, staring straight ahead.

He’s unmoving, like a statue someone carved into the rocks that’s been watching the waves rolling onto the beach for centuries. At first glance, Dean’s face seems expressionless but then Sam detects something like wistfulness. Sam remembers that Dean used to love swimming, to dive into the water and let his weight be carried by the ocean.

Sam thinks that Dean looks like a lost kid sitting there, like a little boy who’s faced with something he wants badly but knows he can’t have. Like a child in a toy store that wants to play with all the toys in there but knows he’s not allowed to. Dean’s fingers are drumming on his knees nervously. He’s scared. Scared to show Sam what Hell really did to him.

Thing is, if Sam suggested to Dean now to go swimming in the ocean, Dean would just glare at him, shake his head and tell him that he doesn’t want to go for a swim. That he didn’t want to come here anyway, fuck all this.

“I’m going for a swim,” Sam tells Dean and stands, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it aside carelessly. He peels out of his jeans until he’s only in his black boxer shorts—he never bothered to buy actual swim shorts—and sees Dean’s head bob into a nod. He makes no attempt to join Sam, so with a sigh Sam just leaves him sitting there.

It only takes a few steps until the beach beneath his feet changes, turns from dry miniature hills of sand into a flat stretch of wet ground. Water prickles his skin and Sam takes moves forward, until a soft wave washes around his feet. He jumps back when the water hits his toes but then takes two steps forward, wades into the water until it reaches up to his knees.

The water’s cool but not unpleasantly cold. He feels the current pulling the ground under his feet, the movement of the tide as it caresses his calves. He turns around and waves back at Dean, who’s still sitting in the same spot and watching Sam, and lets himself fall into the ocean.

The waves take him in and he closes his eyes shut, forgets to close his mouth in time though, and swallows two gulps of salty water. He surfaces and spits the rest out, laughs and flings himself on his back, lets the water take his weight. He paddles around for a minute, staring into the blue sky before he rolls over and dives into the water.

He can’t see much besides of shades of green and brown, but that’s beside the point. He’s in the ocean, diving, and he likes that—likes how the water’s all around him and he’s just floating, weightless. Likes how all his sorrows are sucked out of him and substituted with calm. He’s free, for the moment, and the ocean is boundless, all his.

His feet search for ground and when they find it, Sam pushes his body into an upright position until he surfaces again. The air is cool on his wet skin, the hair in his neck stands up. He doesn’t know how long he’s been swimming, funny how his sense of time isn’t working out here. He rubs his eyes dry before he opens them, and when he does, he doesn’t notice how his mouth forms a silent ‘o’.

Dean’s by the water now, feet already in the ocean. What’s more, at some point while Sam was underwater Dean took off his t-shirt and jeans, like Sam did, and now he’s standing there with his arms wrapped around his chest in a feeble attempt of protection, concealing it from Sam’s view.  
But Sam sees it all—the healed lashes and cuts, all across Dean’s chest and arms and legs, fine and bold white stripes on Dean’s skin. It looks like there isn’t a single inch of Dean’s body that wasn’t hurt at some point.

Sam averts his eyes quickly, as quickly as he can after the first moment of shock—he’d guessed what Dean’s body looked like underneath the layers of clothes he wears these days, but seeing it like that and realising it is even worse than Sam imagined...

He turns around a bit so that Dean doesn’t feel like Sam’s watching him, acts like he doesn’t care really whether Dean goes for a swim or stays on the beach until he’s old and wrinkled. Under water, though, Sam’s hands curl to fists and his body tenses up with anticipation and all he really wants Dean to do is take another couple of steps and then, for the first time in a long, long time, see his brother smile again.

He doesn’t see how Dean finally wades into the water on unsteady feet, he doesn’t know whether Dean’s face reads worry or excitement when he finally lets go.

But Sam hears him, hears Dean’s cry of joy that echoes in the surge and rises up to the sky, and it’s followed almost instantly by a splash as Dean lets himself fall into the water.

-end-


End file.
